[7]

As the age in which Shakspeare wrote, had he not been in existence, would still have been remarkable on account of its dramatic writers, so the Cinque Cento is equally distinguished as the era of the arts. Yet has no very satisfactory cause been assigned for the direction of the human mind to these particular pursuits at these precise periods; for, simultaneously in countries differing in climate, governments, and manners, have the requisite men of genius arisen.

It might be easier to account for the depression than the rise of the noblest arts. Of this we shall presently speak; aware, at the same time, how ungracious will be the words which will admit of a decadence among ourselves. When we boast of our "enlightened age," it would not be amiss that we stay for a moment our pride, look back, and consider how much we have absolutely lost; in how much we are inferior. Every age seems destined to do its own work, which it does nearly to the perfection of its given art or science. Succeeding ages are destined rather to invent new than to improve upon the old. What has been done, becomes an accumulated wealth that Time deposits ever, and passes on to continual work to add fresh materials, and stock the world with the means of general improvement and happiness. There is always progression, but it is a progression of invention; the destined works are too vast, too infinite to allow a long delay in the advancement of any one accomplishment. It is rapidly completed; we are scarcely allowed time to stand and wonder; we must pass on to perform something new. Yet, if such attained thing shall be lost, or nearly so, the power to create it again may be again given; but it works de novo, adapting itself to the new principle which has rendered the reproduction advantageous, if not necessary. Thus, for instance, in the ages which we are pleased to call dark, to what magnitude and what exactness of beauty did not architecture reach, and that in a particularly inventive style—the Gothic—borrowing not from what had before been, and which had been held perfect, a style upon which we do not now even hope to improve, but content ourselves with admiring and copying. Thus it should seem that where any thing like a practical continuance of an art has been permitted, the entirely new direction it has taken would show that invention, required for the age, was the object, and that, too, bounded by a limit. "For this purpose have I raised thee up," would appear to be the text upon which the histories of the arts, as of every thing human, may be considered the comment.

It is to the total loss of ancient art that mankind are indebted for its revival, its re-discovery, as it were; for little or nothing was left from which, as from an old stock, art was to begin.

The new Christian principle created a new mind, to which there was little consonant in what was known, however imperfectly, of ancient works. Hence what is termed revival might, with more aptitude of expression, be called the re-discovery.

Had art been uninterruptedly continued from the days of Apelles, it would probably have degenerated to its lowest state. The destruction, the altogether vanishing away of the former glory, was essential to the rise of the new. All was nearly obliterated. Of the innumerable statues of which Greece was plundered by the Romans, but six were to be found—five of marble, and one of brass—in the city of Rome, at the beginning of the fifteenth century; so that art may be said to have been defunct. The decadence of architecture seems also to have been required for the originating the Gothic, for the inventing altogether a new style, which had no prototype. It was necessary to the establishing the Christian principle operatively, that the mind should be wrested powerfully from former and antagonistic ideas. And this could scarcely have been effected had any thing like a continual, an important succession of vigorous life in these arts been allowed.

It seems to have been the work of a great guiding will, that the way should be prepared for renovation, by the almost entire loss or mutilation of the greatest works of former periods, and by the veil of ignorance which victorious barbarism spread before all eyes, that they should not distinguish through that cloud the remnant of a glory which was too great to be altogether destroyed. The very language which spoke of it was a buried charm, that the oblivion might be more perfect. And not until the now grown Christian mind required the re-discovery of art, was that tongue loosened. The revival of ancient literature and the birth of new art were simultaneous. With the latter, at least, it was more than a sleep from which it arose—it was from a death, with all the marks of its corruption.

We do not mean to assert that art rose at once full-grown, as Pallas from the head of Jove. It had undoubtedly its progression; but it did not grow from an old stock; and hence it did grow and arose unimpeded and unchoked by an unwholesome exuberance, to the greatest splendour and glory. Whether there can be again any new principle which will require new inventions, it would be almost presumptuous to consider; but we do feel assured that should it be so, there will not be an adaptation of present means to it, but that the wing of oblivion must have to sweep over, overshadow, and obliterate the present multifarious form and body of art. The fine arts are not like the exact sciences, always progressing from accumulative knowledge towards their final and sure establishment of truth; on the contrary, their great truths recede further from view, as knowledge is accumulated, and practice, deteriorates by example. Science is truth to be dug out of the earth, as it were; a precious ore, not strictly ours, but by and for our use. The fine arts are in a far greater degree ours, for they are of the mind's creation; they are the product of a faculty given, indeed, but given to create and not to gather, and dig up ready-made for our purpose; they are of that faculty which has given the name to the poet, as altogether the maker. They give that to the world which it never could have received by any accumulation of fact and knowledge. Take away the individual genius, the inventive, the creating mind of the one man, the Homer, the Dante, the Shakspeare, the Michael Angelo, the Raffaelle, and the whole product is annihilated; we cannot even conceive of its existence, know of no mine wherein to dig, no facts, no knowledge out of which it can grow. That creating power may, indeed, turn all existing things to its use, all facts and all knowledge; but it commands and is not governed by them—is a power in no degree dependant on them, which would still be, though they existed not—a power which, if it exhausted worlds, would invent new for its purpose. To whom, then, are such powers given? for what purpose?—and are they of a gift deteriorated in its use and abuse? Alas! they are still of the "corruptible," and cannot, in our present state, "put on incorruption." They are, however, of the mind, which may be purified and strengthened, or corrupted and degraded.

They effect in a great degree, and suitably to the age's requirement, their purpose. Corrupted from the ardour and sincerity of their first passion, and by the admission, little by little, of what is vicious, and yet which, we must confess, has its beauty; their very aim becomes changed, less large by subdivision, and less sure by confusion and uncertainty of aim, until all purpose be lost, in a low satisfaction in mere dexterity and mindless imitation. And what shall stay art in such downward way of decadence? Can a strong impulse be given to it—for there is no strength but the mind's strength? It is not patronage, but purpose, which is wanted. What shall revivify the passion that gave it earnestness,—the sincerity, the trust in itself, the confidence in its own high-mindedness, the sense of the importance of its objects, and the true glory of their pursuit? We have our fears that we are doing much to multiply artists, and degrade art. We distribute patronage in so many streams, by our art-unions, that no full fertilising current is visible. We make a pauperism, and stamp it with the disgrace of the beggarly contribution; we, pauperise the mind too, by the demand for mean productions, and by circulating, as the choicest specimens of British art, engravings which tend utterly to the deterioration of the public taste. Perhaps there is nothing more frightfully injurious in the present state of art, than this ever putting before the public eye things in themselves bad, and mostly bad, where badness is more surely fatal, in purpose. It is far easier for good taste and for good art, in practice, to arise out of a blank, out of nothing, than out of an exuberance of bad examples. These things tend to vitiate the pure. The great daily accumulation of inferior works, low in character, and deficient in artistic knowledge and skill, that are ever thrust before the public eye, are doing much mischief. They are poisoning and vitiating the ground from which taste should spring. We are not educating in art, but against art. We are teaching to admire things which, were it possible to keep what is bad from the public eye, would disgust as soon as seen. And even where the exhibition is in no other respect vicious, it is too often vicious from the total absence of any high purpose. For lack of object, we look to some mere mechanical prettinesses; and by habit learn first to look for, and then to work for, nothing more. When the great men of other days, whose names we have now so constantly in our mouths, dedicated themselves to art, they did it with all their soul. They had the earnestness of a passion; and what they did not, as we should now say, well, technically viewing some of their early works, they did to express some strong and some worthy feeling. And as they advanced in technical skill, still they ever thought a certain dignity and importance were essential to their works. The public mind had not yet felt satiety. But in time the progeny of art multiplied. The trading multitude had to entice purchasers, and to persuade them that their novelties were at least more pleasing, if the aim was not so high. The new lamps were cried up above the old. Thus they first created a bad taste, and then pandered to it. Cold conventionalities took the place of feeling; even beauty was studied more for low sense, than for its moral, and intellectual expression. Art was smothered by her own children. The brood has been too numerous, and the productions as variable as the brood. They who would do great things were they allowed, are not allowed. The lower fascinations have taken possession of the public mind. Patronage runs to the little, and the greatest encouragement is to those who will provide the market with the cheapest, if not the best wares. Artists must live as well as other people. They cannot, if they would, sacrifice themselves to work out great and noble ideas, for which there is no demand; and for this state of things they are themselves in no small degree to blame. It is their own cry for patronage that has raised these art-unions: the patronage has been raised, but who gets it? They (like the national guard in Paris) have been superseded by their own inferior workmen. And what shall remedy all this superfoetation? First, let pains be taken properly to educate in art the public eye, and the public mind. We rejoice to know that, while we are writing, a society is forming, similar to the Cambden Society, for the publication of all important works on art, whether old or original, and for having the finest productions of art engraved, in whatever country they are to be found. As good taste is the object, so care will be taken that nothing of a deteriorating character will be admitted; and works will be produced which, in the present state of general feeling, private speculation would scarcely venture upon. The works will, we are given to understand, chiefly be distributable among the members of the society; but some, thought to be particularly well adapted to give a better direction to the public taste, will be generally purchasable.

This society is of great promise—if it succeeds at all, it will succeed eminently, and we believe it must succeed. It will, we have some hope drive the low, the meaningless things of the day out of the field. We are, as a nation, really ignorant of art. We know it not, as it has been. We want to see the public eye acquainted, through good engravings, with the numerous fine frescos that cannot be generally known in any other way. Whatever tends to the real advancement of art will obtain the solicitous attention of this society.

The Fine Arts Commission affords another means of remedying the evils that are besetting the profession, and through them the public taste. We do not like the Government competition system. We go further—we do not like the Government, we mean the Commission, constituting themselves judges and purveyors. This is not the way to make great men. The man of genius shrinks from the competition system; nay, he fears or doubts the judgment of his judges. Perhaps he feels that he is himself the best judge; and if he has a just confidence in himself, he ought to feel this. He will not like the check of too much dictation as to subjects, composition, or any of the detail. We are persuaded that it would be far wiser, both for the public and for art, that the commissioners should studiously select their man, without competition, not for some one or more pictures, but for a far wider range. There will be still competition enough for proper ambition in the number still to be employed. Raffaelle had the Vatican assigned to him, and that at an early age; so would we gladly see a large portion given to one man, and let the whole be of his one mind, and let him have his assistants if he please. Let him be dominant, and if he has within him a power, it will come out; and it cannot be difficult to find a few men of sense and vigour; and even though they have not as yet shown great powers, it does not follow that they have them not—trust to what they have, and more will grow. But we have some even now capable of performing beautiful works to do honour to the nation. We should rejoice to see their secretary released from the clerkship of his office, and set to work seriously with his hand and his superintending mind. We would impress this upon the consideration of the commissioners as an indisputable truth, that if they select a man of genius, they select one superior to themselves—one who is to teach, not to be taught by them—and one with whose arrangements, after their selection, they should by no means interfere. And supposing the worst, that they have actually made an unfortunate choice—what then? They have made an experiment at no very great cost, and may obliterate whatever is a disgrace. The works of other painters were obliterated in the Sistine Chapel to make room for Michael Angelo. Nor was there any hesitation in destroying the labours of previous artists, and even the suspended operations of his old master, Perugino, that the whole space might be open to the genius of the youth Raffaelle. It is whole, entire responsibility that makes great men. Throw upon the persons you select the whole weight, and thereby give them the benefit of all the glory; and whatever be their powers, you tax them to the utmost. We would have them by no means interfered with, any more than we would cripple the commander of our armies abroad with the petty counsels and restrictions of bureau-manufacture. Nor should they be too strictly limited as to time, nor subjected to the continual questionings of an ungenerous impatience. Let the trust be conferred upon them as an honour which they are to wear and enjoy, not as a notice of their servility, but of their freedom. That trust is less likely to be abused the more generously it is given. To fulfil it then, becomes an ambition; and the daily habit of this higher feeling, by making the given work the all in all of life, renders the men more fit for it. Let the nation, expecting liberality from the "Liberal Arts," bestow it—hold out high rewards, leave the artists in all respects unshackled; and, the intention of a work being approved of, let not the time it is to occupy be in the stipulation. And it would be well to look to the promise of the young as well as actual performances; for the power to do will grow. Of thirty-eight competitors convened at Florence, Lorenzo Ghiberti, only twenty-three years of age, was chosen to execute the celebrated doors; the work occupied forty years of his life. The work is immortal, if human work can be; and obtained this eulogium from Michael Angelo, that "they were worthy of being the gates of Paradise." He conferred honour upon his city, and received such as was worthy the city to bestow. "His labours were justly appreciated, and ably rewarded by his fellow citizens, who, besides granting him whatever he demanded, assigned him a portion of land, and elected him Gonfaloniere, or chief magistrate of the state. His bust was afterwards placed in the baptistery." Was the confidence, the full trust, in the power of the young Raffaelle misplaced? What wonders did he not perform in his too short life! Had he lived longer, he would without question have reached the highest honours his country had to bestow.

One word more on this subject of generosity—of national generosity. We seem to think it a great thing to bestow a knighthood upon an artist of eminence here and there, yet give not the means of keeping the dignity from conspicuous shame, of maintaining a decent hospitality among his brethren artists, by which much general improvement might evidently arise. All our real substantial honours are conferred upon soldiers and lawyers. They have estates publicly given, and are raised to the peerage; yet it is doubtful if one man of genius, in literature and the arts, does not deserve better of his country, and confer upon it more glory, than any ten of the other more favoured professions: and more than this, the name of one such genius will be remembered, perhaps with some sense of the disgrace of neglect, when all the others are forgotten. Let a lawyer be but a short period of his life upon the woolsack, he will find means to raise to himself a fortune, and retire back upon private life with an annual pension of thousands; while the man of genius in arts and literature is too often left in old age uncheered by any acknowledgment, and perhaps weighed down to death by embarrassments, from which a delighted, improved, and at the same time an ungrateful country will not relieve him. A government should know that it is for the crown to honour a profession, and thereby to make it worthy the honour. We live in a country where distinctions do much, and are worse than profitless without adequate means to sustain them. It would be well if sometimes selections were made in other directions than the law and army, and if our peerage were not unfrequently radiated with the glory of genius. Why should a barren baronetcy have been conferred on the author of Waverley? Had he been a conqueror in fifty battles, could he have conferred more benefit than he has conferred upon his country? Why is it that there is always in our government a jealousy of literature and the arts? There has not been a decent honour bestowed on either since the reign of the unfortunate Charles. Poets, painters, and sculptors, it is vulgarly thought, are scarcely "alendi," and certainly "non saginandi." The arts might at least be given a position in our universities. This, as a first step, would do much,—it would tend, too, mainly to raise the public taste, which is daily sinking lower and lower. We should be glad to see Mr Eastlake made professor of painting at Oxford, with an adequate establishment there to enable him not only to lecture, but to teach more practically by design, in the very place of all others in the kingdom where there is most in feeling congenial with art. We mention Mr Eastlake, not making an invidious distinction, but because his acquirements in literature, and his valuable contributions to it, seem most readily to point to him as a fit occupant for the professor's chair. We have repeatedly, in the pages of Maga, insisted upon the importance of establishing the fine arts in our universities, and at one time entertained a hope that the Taylor Legacy would have taken this direction. We are not, however, sorry altogether that it did not do so, for it would surely be more advantageous that such a movement should begin with the Government. It would remedy, too, more evils than one; it would give an occupation of mind, congenial with their academic studies, to our youth, and preserve them from a dangerous extravagance both of purse and of opinions. The hopes, however, of any thing really advantageous to the fine arts arising from our Government, unless very strongly urged to it, are small. They do not seem inclined at all to favour the profession; they would look upon it as solely addicted to the labour of the hand with a view to small profits—a portion of which profits, too, upon some strange principles of the political economists, they would appropriate to the nation as a fine, the penalty of genius. One would imagine, from the proposition of the Board of Trade to take 10 per cent from subscriptions to art-unions for the purchasing pictures for the National Gallery, that they considered the epithet "fine" so appropriated to the arts as intended originally to suggest a tax. They would not allow the profession a free trade. Whatever is obtained by exhibiting works of artists, should be as much their property as would the product of any other manufacture be the property of the respective adventurers, and the art-union subscriptions are undoubtedly a portion of these profits. What, in common justice, have the public to do with them? The proposed scheme is a step towards communism, and may have been borrowed from the French provisional seizure of their railroads. With equal justice might they require that every butcher and baker and tailor should give a portion of his meat, his bread, and his cloth to feed and clothe our army and navy; and this not as of a common taxation, but as an extra compliment and advantage to these trades. There is a great deal too much here of the beggarly utilitarian view. We advocate not the cause of art-unions—we think them perfectly mischievous, and would gladly see them suppressed; but surely to invite and tempt the poor artists to paint their twenty and five-and-twenty pound pictures, and coolly to take 10 per cent out of their pockets to purchase to yourself a gallery of art, is not very consonant to our general ideas of what is due to the liberal arts. The liberality is certainly not reciprocal.

Nor, indeed, when we view the state of our National Gallery, considering the building as well as what it contains, can we be induced to think that the Government are very much in earnest in their profession of a desire to raise its importance. The National Gallery has its committee, and there is the Commission of Fine Arts. The former like not a questioning Parliament, and have not sufficient confidence in themselves to disregard the uncomplimentary animadversions of a critical press; and so the National Gallery advances not. The latter appear to treat art too much as a taxable commodity, and as having a right to levy specimens, and take for the public the profit of them, when they are required to cater for any national works. We do not, however, doubt their sincere desire to promote the arts; but we do doubt if they are perfectly alive to the real importance of the work they have to do, and fear their efforts are rendered less useful by the number and conflicting tastes of the members. Divisions and subdivisions of responsibility terminate too frequently in many little things which, put together, do not make one great one.

However deficient, or however faulty in our taste, there seems to be at the present moment a more general desire to become acquainted with art and its productions in former ages. Publications of historical and critical importance are not wanting; but it is singular that the prevailing patronage is little influenced as yet by the knowledge received. From whatever cause it may arise, the fact is manifest that we have not a distinct School of Art. It might be quite correct to assert, that there is no characteristic school, not one founded on a principle—a principle distinguished from former influences—in any country of Europe. We do not even except the German schools; for able though the men be and honoured, they show no symptom of an inventive faculty, which can alone make a school. They are as yet in their imitative state—in that of revival. They are in the trammels of an artistic superstition. They have no one great and new idea to realise. They make their commencement from art, not from mind—forgetful of this truth, that art cannot grow out of art: for, if good, it seduces the mind into mere imitation, which soon becomes effect; if bad, it incapacitates from conceiving the beautiful. Art cannot grow out of art; it may progress from its inferior to its better state, till the idea of its principle has been completed. It must then begin again from a new—from an idea not yet embodied—or it will inevitably decline, from the causes named, to mediocrity.

It does not at all follow, in this rise of new art—or, if we please, revival of art—that there shall be at first a consciousness of working upon a new principle, or a positive purpose to deviate (for such a purpose would be but a vagary and extravagance, relying on no principle:) there must be some want of the day strongly felt, some feeling to be embodied, some impress of the times to be stamped and made visible. Hence alone can arise a new principle of art; and it is one that cannot be preconceived, it must have its birth without forethought, and possibly without a knowledge that it exists; it may be in the artist's mind, an unconscious purpose working through the conscious processes of art. The age in which we live has a strong desire to know all about art, as to advance in knowledge of every kind; but has it in itself one characteristic feeling, one strong impulse, favourable to art, such as will make genius start up, as it were, from his slumber and his dream, and do his real work? Nor can this be prophesied of; for, if it could, it would exist somewhere, at least in the mind of the prophet. It is like the statue existing in the block; but it is the hand of time, under direction that we wot not of, that must be cutting it away. Nor is it fair, for any lack in one power of mind, to underrate the age in which we live. It may be great in another power to do a destined work; that work done, another may be required, and another power be developed, in which art may be the required means to the more perfect vivifying a new principle. The genius of our day is too busy in the world's doings, in striving to advance utility, to have leisure, or to take an interest in the ideal and poetical. A great poetry it is indeed in itself, with all its mighty engines, working with iron arms more vast and powerful than fable could imagine of Brontes and Steropes, and all the huge manufacturers of thunderbolts for an Ideal Jove. Reality has outgrown fiction,—has become the "major videri,"—is doing a sublime work—one, too, in which poetry of high cast is inherent, through hands and means most unpoetical. Mind is there, thought is there, worthy of all the greatness of man's reputation for sagacity or invention, and gigantic energy; the reaching to and grasping the large powers of nature, and adding them to his own body, thus becoming, unconscious of the poetic analogy, a Titan again. This age is, after all, doing a great deed. Let the dreamer, the versifier, the searcher after visible beauty, the painter, the statuary, incapacitated as they all generally are from the knowledge of what we term the business of life, consider coolly, without prejudice for his art, and against what more commonly meets him in some interrupting and ungracious form, reality, the machinery of governments, the science of banking, the law of markets, and the innumerable detail of which he seldom thinks, but without the establishment of which he would not be allowed to think,—by which he lives his daily life; let him trace any one manufacture through all its successive ingenuities to its great uses and its great results. Let him travel a few hundred miles on a railroad, and note how all is ordered, with what precision all arrangements are made and conducted, and what a world it is in itself, moving through space like a world, and set in motion and stayed by the hand of one of his own Saxon blood; and then, in idea, transferring himself from his own work, and his pride of his own art, let him ask himself if he sees not something beyond, quite extraneous to himself, a great thing effected, which he never could have conceived nor have executed; and then let him say if there be not even in this our working world, a great and living poetry, a magnificent thought realised, a principle brought out, worthy an age; and then let him be content for a while that his own particular capacity should for a time be in abeyance, to great purposes inoperative, unproductive of the world's esteem. It may be that he will but have to wait for his season. His time may come again. Some new principle in the world's action, with possibly a secret and electric power, may reach him, enter his own mind, and set at large all his capacities, and make them felt; for that principle, whatever it is to be, will be electric, too, in the general mind. It may arise naturally out of the present state of things. Now, our schoolless art, like what has once been a mighty river, with all its tributary streams, has wandered into strange and lower lands, and been enticed away through innumerable small channels, still fertilising, in a more homely and modest way, many countries, but losing its own distinctive character and name. The streams will never flow back and unite again, but some of them, in this earth's shifts and changes, may again become rivers, and bear a rich merchandise into the large ocean, and so enrich the world. If we think upon the distinct characteristics of schools, we must be struck with this, that before each one was known, established, and confirmed in public opinion, it could not have been generally imagined and preconceived. It is altogether the creation of gifted genius. We acknowledge the setting up a great truth, of which we had not a glimpse until we see it worked out, and standing before us manifest. It is ours by natural adoption, not by a universal instinctive invention. So that it is a presumption of our weakness to believe, as some do, that the arena of art is limited, and every part occupied; and that, for the future, nothing is left but a kind of copying and imitation. Who is to set limit to the powers of mind? We can imagine a dogmatist of this low kind, before Shakspeare's day, in admiration of the Greek drama, laying down the laws of the unities as irrefragable, and that the great volume of the drama was closed with them. And some such opinions have been set forth by our Gallic neighbours, and maintained with no little pertinacity. We must have been Shakspeares to have preconceived his drama. How, for ages, was poetry limited! the epic, as it were, closed! His age knew nothing of Milton before Milton. It was a new principle coming dimly through troubadours and romances, that shone forth at length Homerically, but with a difference, in Marmion, and indeed all Sir Walter Scott's poetry, which, if it be linked to any that has preceded it, must be referred to the most remote, to that of Homer himself; so that let no man say that the world of fact and possibility is shut against art. The great classic idea, the deification, the worship of beauty, was completed by the ancients. There was a long rest, a sleep, without a dream of a new principle; but it came, and art awakened to its perception. Giotto, Della Robbo, the old Siennese school, Beato Angelico, Pisani, Donatello, evolve the Christian idea. Perugino, weak in faith, turns art towards earth, and leads Rafaelle to strive for a new beautiful; and Michael Angelo for the powerful—the former humanising the divine, the latter, if not deifying, gigantising humanity—not in the antique repose, but incorporeal energy—the whole dignity of man, as imagined in his personal condition. This was the characteristic of the Florentine school—as, after Perugino, or commencing with him, intellect, united with grace and beauty, became the characteristic of the Roman. But grace and beauty are dangerously human. The religious mind, in reverential contemplation, felt awe above humanity, and feared to invest divinity with corporeal charm. Even in heathen art, the great Athenian goddess affects not grace, but stands in a severe repose, so unlike rest, the beautiful emblem of weakness. Grace and beauty became dangerous qualities when applied to Christian devotional art. The followers of Perugino, who thought them essential, were not at first aware to what degree they were deteriorating the great principle of their school, and how they were rendering art too human for their creed. Woman—by the gift of nature, beauty personified—by more close and accurate study of her perfections, ceased to be an object of real worship, as her fascinations were felt. Even Raffaelle was under an unadoring influence. His madonnas often detract much from the idolatry which his church laboured to confirm. We must not wonder, then, if after him we find humanity in woman even dethroned from her higher and almost majestic state of heavenly purity—though legitimatised as an object of worship, the "mother of God," in that higher sanctity than it was possible to set up man, in his most saintly apotheosis, (for the boldest mind would necessarily be shocked at the idea of bestowing a divine paternity on man, even if his religion forbade it not.) Woman, in her real beauty, superseded the ideal; and, from condescending to represent inferior saints and conventual devotees, reassumed at length her more earthly empire, and threw around fascinations which rather tended to dissipate than to encourage religious sentiment. The divinity of art, which had deigned to shine with sacred lustre beneath and through the natural veil of modesty, indignantly withdrew, when that veil was rudely cast aside by the undevotional hands of her not less skilful but more deteriorated professors.

The Venetian school, with a truly congenial luxury of colour, evolved the idea of civil polity, in all its connexions with religion, with judicature, with manners, commerce, societies, dignities, triumphs; a large field, indeed, but one in which the great civic idea was the characteristic, running through every subject. Even the nude, before considered as most eligible in the display of art, yielded to civic dress and gorgeous ornament. What other ideas remain to be evolved? The world does not stand still—art may for a time. We must wait till some genius awaken us.

There is, we repeat, no modern school among us; art is pursued to an extent unprecedented, but without any fixed serious purpose, in all its multifarious forms, and with an ability sufficient to show that some moving cause is alone wanted. We progress in skill, in precision and clearness; but the hand is little directed by the mind. Our exhibition walls abound with talent, but are for the most part barren of genius: and surely this must continue to be the case, while the public mind is in its unpoetic, its utilitarian state, and shall look to art for its passing charm only as a gentle recreation, an idle amusement. If there is any tendency to a school, it is unfortunately to one which is most in opposition to that pure school which found, and cherished, and idealised the sanctity of female beauty.

We know not if it should be considered an escape or not; but certainly there was, in the earlier period of English art, one man of extraordinary genius, who, vigorously striking out a great moral idea, might have been the founder of a new school. We mean Hogarth. He was, however, too adventurously new for the age, and left no successor; nor is even now the greatness of his genius generally understood. He has been classed with "painters of drolls;" yet was he the most tragic painter this country—we were about to say, any country—has produced. We are not prepared to say it is a school we should wish to have been established; but we assert that the genius of Hogarth incurred for us the danger. His works stand unique in art—that which can be said, perhaps, of the works of no other painter that ever existed, and obtained a name. We had written so far, when we were willing to see what a modern writer says of this great man; and we are happy to find his views in so great a degree coincide with our own. We make the follow-extract from Cleghorn's 2d volume of Ancient and Modern Art; a work, indeed, that, when we took up the pen, it was our purpose to speak of more largely, and to which we mean to devote what further space may be allowed for this paper:—

"To Hogarth, on the other hand, M. Passavant awards that justice which has been denied to him by his countrymen. Hogarth is of all English painters, and, perhaps, of all others, the one who knew how to represent the events of common life with the most humour, and, at the same time, with rare and profound truth. This truth of character is, however, visible not only in his conception of a subject, but is varied throughout in the form and colour of his figures in a no less masterly manner." "Hogarth [continues Mr Cleghorn] stands alone as an artist, having had no predecessors, rivals, nor successors. He is the more interesting, too, as being the first native English artist of celebrity. Yet a tasteless public was unable to appreciate his merits; and he was driven to the necessity of raffling his pictures for small sums, which only partially succeeded. In spite of the sneers of Horace Walpole that he was "more a writer of comedy with his pencil than a painter," and the epigrammatic saying of Augustus Von Schlegel, that 'he painted ugliness, wrote on beauty, and was a thorough bad painter,' he was a great and original artist, both painter and engraver, whose works, coming home to every man's understanding and feelings, and applicable to every age and country, can never lose their relish and interest. They are chiefly known to the public by his etchings and engravings, which, however, convey a very imperfect idea of the beauty and expression of the original paintings." We only object to stress laid upon his humour, which is not his, or at least his only, characteristic. He was a great dramatist of human life; humour was the incidental gift, tragedy the more essential. Who had more humour, more wit than Shakspeare, and who was ever so tragic, or so employed his humour as to set it beside his most tragic scenes, with an effect that made the pathos deeper? In such a sense was Hogarth "comic." His "Marriage À la Mode" is the deepest of tragedies.

We turn to Mr Cleghorn's two interesting and very useful volumes. They give a compendious, yet, for general use and information, sufficiently elaborate view of architecture, sculpture, and painting, from their very origin to their present condition. We know of no work containing so complete a view. If we are disposed at all to quarrel with his plan, it is that in every branch he comes down to too late a time. And as it is always the case with writers who find themselves committed to the present age, he evidently finds himself encumbered with the detail which this part of his plan has forced upon him. In matter it will be often found that the present age overpowers all preceding, when even it is vastly inferior in importance. Nor is it very easy to avoid a bias in speaking of contemporaries; nor can a writer safely depend upon his own judgment when he looks too nearly and intimately on men and their works, and fears the giving offence by omissions, or by too qualified praise. His divisions into schools, with general remarks on each at the end, give a very clear view, when taken together, of the history of these arts; and we are rejoiced to see them—architecture, sculpture, and painting—thus in a manner linked in history, as they were formerly in the minds and genius of the greatest men. In this he follows the good course led by Vasari. In his account of the Flemish and Dutch schools, there is a strange omission of the early Flemish painters preceding and subsequent to the Van Eycks, to the time of Rubens; nor is the influence which the brothers Van Eyck had upon art sufficiently discussed. We propose at some future day to treat more at length on this subject, and to make extracts from Michiel's very interesting little volume, his "Peintres Brugeois." Even in the short account of Van Eyck's invention, Mr Cleghorn is somewhat careless, in the omission of one important little word, sue, in his extract from Vasari, who does not exactly describe the invention as "the result of a mixture or vehicle composed of linseed oil or nut oil, boiled up with other mixtures," but "with other mixtures of his own." Vasari says, "e aggiuntevi altre sue misture fece la vernice," &c.

In the following remarks on Greek sculpture we find something consonant to the ideas we have ventured to express:—

"A remarkable difference is observable in the female ideal, the result of that refined delicacy and purity of taste evinced on all occasions by the Greeks. They neither increased the stature, nor heightened the contours of their heroines and goddesses, convinced that in so doing they must have sensibly impaired the beauty, modesty, and delicacy of the sex. In this the Greek sculptors conformed to the rule inculcated by Aristotle, and uniformly observed in the Greek tragedy, never to make woman overstep the modesty of the female character. The Medicean Venus is but a woman, though perhaps more beautiful than ever woman appeared on earth. Another peculiarity is very striking. While a great proportion of the male statues, whether men, heroes, or gods, were naked, or nearly so, those of the other sex, with the exception of the Venuses, Graces, and Hours, were uniformly draped from head to foot. Even the three Graces by Socrates, described by Pausanias as decorating the entrance to the Acropolis, were clothed in imitation of the more ancient Graces." As to this exception of the Venuses and Graces, Mr Cleghorn seems to have in some degree misapprehended the passage relating thereto in Pausanias, who distinctly says that he knows not who first sculptured or painted them naked, but it was after the time of Socrates. These Graces of Socrates, by the bye, may be the f??a?, of whom he speaks in his dialogue with Theodota, who, he says, will not let him rest day nor night.

The number of nude Venuses would, it may be suspected, scarcely justify the elegant compliment in the epigram in the Anthologia—

Our author censures the school of Bernini, we should have thought justly, remembering much that has been said on the subject of the unfitness of the ponderous material to represent light action, if we had not seen the Xanthian marbles brought to this country by Sir Charles Fellowes, and now deposited in the British Museum. The female statues that stood in the Tomb Temple are exquisite, and perhaps equal to any Grecian art, yet are they represented with flying drapery. It is difficult to make a rule which some bold genius shall not subvert.

Most authors on art think it necessary to descant upon liberty, as most favourable to its advancement. It is difficult to define what liberty is, so that every example may be disputed. If we take the age of Pericles, when the wonders of Phidias were achieved, we must not forget that Phidias himself was treated by the Athenians with such indignity that he left them, and deposited his finest work at Corinth. The republic suspected him of thieving the gold, and he had the precaution, knowing his men, to weigh the metal, and work it so as to be removable. We must not forget that Pericles, who fortunately in a manner governed Athens, was obliged to plead on his knees for the life of Aspasia, whose offence was her superior endowments. When Alexander subjugated Greece, art still flourished. Nor was it crushed even in the wars and revolts and subjugations by Cassander, after the death of Alexander. We should not say that the Augustan age was exactly the age of liberty, but it was the age of literature. The easier solution may be, "Sint MÆcenates, non deerunt Marones." Munificent patronage will often raise what that state which passes under the name of liberty will often destroy.

"In the most favoured periods of the fine arts, we find patronage either dispensed by the sovereign, the state, or the priesthood; or, if a commonwealth, by the rulers who had the revenues at their command. Possessing taste and knowledge themselves, and appreciating the importance and dignity of art, they selected the artists whom they deemed best fitted for the purpose. The artists, again, respected and consulted their patrons, between whom there reigned a mutual enthusiasm, good understanding, and respect. Such were Pericles, Alexander the Great, Julius CÆsar, Augustus, Hadrian, Francis I. of France, Julius II., Lorenzo and Leo X. of the Medici, the nobles and rulers of the different Italian cities and commonwealths, the Roman Catholic church and clergy, Charles I. of England, Louis XIV. of France—and in our own times the late and present kings of Prussia, the King of Bavaria, Louis Philippe of France, and—it is gratifying to add—Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Great Britain. But, indispensable as national patronage is, it can have no sure or permanent foundation, unless it be likewise supported by the aristocracy and wealthy classes. Instead of emanating, as in the continental states, from the sovereign and government, patronage in Great Britain may be said to have originated with the middle ranks, and to have forced its way up to the higher classes, and even to the government itself."

There are interesting yet short chapters on mosaic, tapestry, and painted glass; subjects now demanding no little public attention, coming again as we are to the taste for decoration. The ladies of England will be pleased to find their needle-work so seriously considered. Happy will it be if their idleness leads to a better and employed industry. Due praise is bestowed upon Miss Linwood, whose works are ranked with the Gobelin tapestry. We remember seeing many years ago an invention that promised great things—painting, if it may be so called, in wool work. It was the invention of Miss Thompson, and was exhibited, and we believe not quite fairly—much mischief having been done to the pictures by pulling out parts, either for wanton mutilation, or to see the manner of the working. Whether from disgust arising from this circumstance, or at the little encouragement shown to it, the invention seems to have dropped. Yet was the effect most powerful, more to the life than any picture, in whatever material; and from the size of the works produced by the hands of one person, we should judge that it is capable of rapid execution. We have a vivid recollection of a copy from a picture by Northcote, figures size of life, and of the head of Govartius, in the National Gallery. We are not without hope that this slight notice may recall a very effective mode of copying, at least, if not of producing, original works.

Of painted glass, it is remarked,—

"The earliest notice of its existence is in the age of Pope Leo III., about the year 800. It did not, however, come into general use till the lapse of some centuries. The earliest specimens differ entirely from those of a later date, being composed of small pieces stained with colour during the process of manufacture, and thus forming a species of patchwork, or rude mosaic, joined together with lead, after being cut into the proper shapes." Mr Cleghorn omits to say that this more perfect invention of painting on one piece various tints and colours, and regulating gradations of burning, was effected and brought to perfection by the same extraordinary man to whom the world is indebted for the invention of oil painting, Van Eyck. From the discoveries of this extraordinary man, or rather these extraordinary brothers, Van Eyck, must be dated the advance in the arts, both on glass and in oil-colours, which brought to both the perfection of colouring.

The wonderful splendour added to design upon glass, which was so eminently practised at Venice, without doubt supplied to the Venetian school an aim which it could not have had under the old tempera system, but which the new oil invention of Van Eyck sufficiently placed within its reach.

Yet, in one view, we may hence date the corruption of art. The severity of fresco was superseded by the new fascination, and somewhat of dignity was lost as beauty was more decidedly established. As very much of the splendour of glass painting was thus introduced in oil, the greater facility of more correctly representing nature, and embodying ideas by degrees of opacity, so gave the preference to oil-painting, that not only the old tempera and fresco were soon neglected, but painting on glass itself, as if it had done its work, and transferred its peculiar beauty, lost much of its repute, and, in no very long time, the processes to which it owed its former glory.

Mr Cleghorn remarks—"Within a few years it has been much cultivated in Great Britain; and the intended application to the decoration of the Houses of Parliament will materially conduce to its improvement and extension." It is unquestionably an art of the greatest importance in decoration. It has a charm peculiarly its own. It dignifies, it solemnises by its own light, and is capable of affecting the mind so as particularly to predispose it to the purposes of architecture. It encloses a sanctuary, excluding the very atmosphere of the outer world. There is the impression and the awe of truth under the searching and embracing light, that should make the utterance of a falsehood the more mean, even sacrilegious. The art that can have this power, nor is this its only, though its greater power, is surely to be cultivated and encouraged extensively. There is now more attention paid to the architecture and decoration of our churches, and a taste has sprung up for monumental windows. We cannot resist, therefore, the temptation to offer a few remarks upon the subject, now that so many mistaken views are taken as to the proper application of this beautiful art.

There seems to be a false idea abroad that the painted window is to be predominant, not assistant to the general impression which the architecture intends. In reality it loses, not gains, power by setting up for itself. And, even in colours, it is not to vie with shop display of colours "by the piece," nor to set forth all its powers at once in a full glare and blaze, and too often without other object and meaning than to display flags of strong unmixed colours. A painted window should be a whole, and have no one colour predominant, but be of infinite depths and degrees of tint and tone with one tendency. Nor should it aim at picture-making, however it may be adapted to the emblematical. It should never affect the absolutely real—the picture illusion: it is altogether of a world of thought and imagination belonging rather to the inner mind of the spectator than to his ordinary thought or vision. The very difficulty of the early manufacture was an advantage to it, for great brilliancy has resulted from the crossings and hatchings of the leaden fastenings; and now that we are enabled to hang up, as it were, flags of colour, the effect of those subduing subdivisions is gone.

There is such a thing, so to speak, as the genius of a material. That genius, in the case of glass-painting, is not for picture. Surely Sir Joshua Reynolds made a great mistake when, in his window for New College, he designed, as for canvass, a picture, and that for the most part without colour, which the genius of the material required. Nor by the largeness of his figures, and of the whole as a design, did he assist, or indeed at all agree with, the character of the architecture. In such instances many and small parts should make one whole, both for the advantage of the real magnitude of the particular work, and that the magnitude of the architecture be not lessened—a method, indeed, which the Gothic architecture studiously followed, in which even minute design and detail give largeness to all the leading lines. Daylight is never to be seen—an imaginary light is the all in all. In this respect it should be like a precious stone, which is best seen in all its infinite depths, in shade, out of all common glare. In the best specimens of old glass-painting the positive and strong colours were few, and in small spaces, and adjoining them was a frequent aiming at those which were almost opaque,—even black and greens, browns and purples, bordering on black. And if emblematic subjects were represented, they were in many compartments, as if the window were a large history-book with its many pages—a world of curious emblems, no one obtrusive. It is bad taste to fill up a whole window with even Raffaelle's Transfiguration; either a picture or a large design is out of place, and dissonant to the genius of the art. One of the worst specimens of painted window is that in the Temple, all self-glorifying, painted as a savage would paint himself, in flags of colour as crude as possible. The genius of the art is for innumerable subdivisions, none obtruding, lest there be no whole. It should be of the light of a brighter world subduing itself, veiling its glory, and diffusing itself in mystic communication with the inner mind; and like that mind, one in feeling with all its varied depths of thought. Colour and transparency are the means of this beautiful art; but these, as they are very powerful require great judgment and determination of purpose in the use. The interwoven gold in the old tapestries was more effectually to separate the character of the material from the too close imitation of nature or the picture; so on the transparent material of glass, the crossing, and sometimes quaintly formed lead lines, always marked, answer the same purpose. Mr Cleghorn is too sparing of remarks and information on the art of painting on glass, which we the less regret, as we are shortly to have before the public the carefully gathered knowledge upon this subject from the pen and research of Mrs Merrifield. His chapter on tapestry is more full and interesting. We have not seen the specimens of a new kind invented by Miss King. It will be a boon to the public if, in its adoption, it supersedes, with a better richness, the Berlin work, at which ladies are now so unceasingly and so tastelessly employed. The Art-Union speaks highly of the invention. It is curious that, in modern times, a Raffaelle tapestry should be destroyed to get at the gold. The anecdote is characteristic of the equally infidel French of 1798 and of the Jew—excepting that the Jew was ignorant of its value. Mr Cleghorn thus speaks of the celebrated cartoon tapestries—"They were sent to be woven at Arras, under the superintendence of Barnard Van Orlay and Michael Coxes, who had been some years pupils of Raffaelle. Two sets of these interesting tapestries were executed; but the deaths of Raffaelle and the pontiff, and the intestine troubles, prevented them being applied to their intended destination. They were carried off by the Spaniards during the sack of Rome in 1526-7, and restored by the French general, Montmorency. They were first exhibited to the public by Paul IV. in front of the Basilica of St Peter's, on the festival of Corpus Domini, and again at the Beatification: a custom that was continued throughout part of the last century, and has again been resumed. The French took them in 1798, and sold them to a Jew at Leghorn, who burned one of them—Christ's Descent into Limbus—to extract the gold with which it was interwoven."

There is so much information in these little volumes, that were we to notice a small part of the passages which we have marked with the pencil, we should unduly lengthen this paper, which we can by no means be allowed to do. We here pause, intending, however, shortly to resume the pen on the subject of art, which now offers so many points of interest.

KAFFIRLAND.

[8]

It is always with fresh interest that we address ourselves to the perusal of books relating to Great Britain's colonial possessions. The subject, daily increasing in importance, has the strongest claims upon our attention. In presence of a rapidly augmenting population, and of the prodigious progress of steam and machinery, the question naturally suggests itself—and more so in England than in any other country—how employment and support shall be found for the additional millions of human beings with which a few years (judging of the future from the past) will throng the surface of a country already densely and superabundantly populated? The problem, often discussed, has not yet been satisfactorily solved. Without broaching the complicated question of over-population and its antidotes, without attempting to decide when a country is to be deemed over-populated, we may assert, without fear of contradiction, that emigration is the simplest and most direct remedy for the state of plethora into which a nation must sooner or later be brought by a steady annual excess of births over deaths. It is a remedy to which more than one European state will ultimately be compelled to resort, however alleviation may previously be sought by temporising and theoretical nostrums, more palatable, perhaps, to the patient, but inadequate, if not wholly inefficacious and charlatanical. And, after all, emigration is no such insupportable prescription for a very ugly malady. Doubtless much may be said upon the cruelty of making exile a condition of existence; but sympathy on this score may also be carried too far, and degenerate into drivel. At first sight the decree appears cruel and tyrannical, until we investigate its source, and find it to proceed from no earthly potentate, but from that omniscient Being whose intention it never was that men should crowd together into nooks and corners, when vast continents and fruitful islands, untenanted save by beasts of the field, or by scanty bands of barbarians, woo to their shores the children of labour and civilisation. Love of country, admirable as an incentive to many virtues, may be pushed beyond reasonable limits. It is so, we apprehend, when it prompts men to pine in penury and idleness upon the soil that gave them birth, rather than seek new fields for their industry and enterprise in uncultivated and vacant lands. What choice of these is afforded by England's vast and magnificent colonies! The emigrant may select almost his degree of latitude. And where Britannia's banner waves, and her laws are paramount, and the honest, kindly Anglo-Saxon tongue is the language of the land, there surely needs no great effort of imagination for a Briton to think himself still at home, though a thousand leagues of ocean roll between him and his native isle.

Excepting that they all more or less refer to the British possessions at the Cape of Good Hope, it were difficult to find three books more distinct from each other in character than those whose titles we have assembled at the foot of last page. An ex-settler, an accomplished lady, and a shrewd sailor, have selected the same moment for the publication of their African experiences. As in gallantry bound, we give the precedence to the lady. Mrs Harriet Ward, wife of a captain of the 91st regiment of foot, is a keen-witted, high-spirited person; and, like most of her sex when they espouse a cause, a warm partisan of the feelings and opinions of those she loves and admires. She is an uncompromising assailant of the system pursued at the Cape, especially as regards our treaties with the Kaffirs, whom she very justly denounces as perfidious, bloody, and unclean savages, untameable, she fully believes, and with whom Whig officials and negotiators have been ridiculously lenient and confiding. Although some of her views are rather sweeping and severe, she is certainly right in the main. And we honour her for her heartiness in denouncing the nauseous humbug of the pseudo-philanthropists, whose manoeuvres have had a most prejudicial effect upon our South African possessions, and have given to persons in this country notions completely erroneous concerning the rights and wrongs of the Kaffir question. But whilst blaming the administration of the colony, she finds the country itself fair and excellent and of great resource. Herein she differs from her contemporary, Mr George Nicholson, junior. This gentleman, lately a settler at the Cape, cannot be too highly lauded for the volume with which he has favoured the public. We are not quite sure, however, that the public will think as highly of it as we do. Our admiration is founded on the consistency of its tone; upon the steady, well-sustained grumble kept up throughout. The preface at once prepossessed us in favour of what was to follow. Intended, doubtless, as a dram of bitters to assist in the digestion of the subsequent sour repast, it consists of general depreciation of other works regarding the Cape, and especially of one by "a Mr Chase"—of sneers at "stay-at-home wiseacres" and hollow theorists—and of a vague accusation brought against certain colonial residents of "fomenting the warlike propensities of the neighbouring barbarians, to secure their own ends," grievously to the detriment and prejudice of their fellow-colonists. "The peculiar bent," says Mr Nicholson, "of each author's mind has, in general, been so far allowed to predominate as to exclude the hope of forming a correct estimate of the capabilities of the soil, climate, and other interesting features of this extensive country, by a perusal of their works." Could the author of "The Cape and its Colonists" read his book with somebody else's eyes, he would discover that his own "peculiar bent has been allowed to predominate," and that the consequences have been of the most gloomy description. Mr Nicholson is evidently a disappointed, man. Either by his fault or misfortune, by the force of circumstances or his own bad management, his attempt to establish himself thrivingly at the Cape resulted unsatisfactorily; and this sufficiently accounts for the general tint of blue so conspicuous in his retrospective sketch of the scene of his mishaps. The particular spot where these occurred was a considerable tract of land (called a farm) in the district of Graaf Reinet, to arrive at which he steamed from Cape Town, where he had landed from England, to Port Elizabeth in Algoa Bay. The dismal aspect of this bay painfully affected him. He "had read some of the glowing descriptions given of this part of the country, by persons whose interest it is to entice over settlers by any means, even the most dishonest, in order to have the benefit of plucking them afterwards. It is true that I had not believed the El Dorado stories so current of this and other colonies, but my expectations had been raised sufficiently high to make the disappointment at the really desolate appearance of the place, perfect." The apparent desolation is accompanied by substantial disadvantages, which Mr Nicholson complacently enumerates. Water is scarce and brackish; there are no vegetables or fruit within twenty miles; hardly forage for a team of oxen; the town is built on sand, of which unceasing clouds are hurled by prevalent strong winds in the face of all comers. No wonder that the new settler, evidently indisposed to be easily pleased, made his escape as quickly as possible from so dreary a neighbourhood. Shipping himself, family, and chattels in an ox-waggon, he joyfully quitted Port Elizabeth on a splendid morning of the African autumn—that is to say, about the end of March or beginning of April, and set out for his property, over a road which he describes as a fair sample of Cape causeways, "nothing more than a series of parallel tracks made by the passage of waggons, from time to time, through the sand and jungle." Finding little to notice on his way, he takes the opportunity of having a fling at the missionaries, whom he describes as doing much harm, although actuated, as he is willing to believe, by the best of intentions. The stations serve as the headquarters of the idlest and most vagabond portion of the coloured population, who have only to affect a Christian disposition to find ready acceptance and refuge. "No sooner is a Hottentot, or other coloured servant, discontented or hopelessly lazy, than off he flies to the nearest station, where he can indulge in the greatest luxury he knows of—that of sleeping either in the sun or shade as his inclination may lead him, with the occasional variation of participating in the singing and praying exercises of the regular inhabitants of the place." If the zealous propagators of Christianity, who thus encourage the natural idleness of the natives, were successful in their attempts at conversion, it might be accepted as some compensation for the temporal evils and inconvenience they aid to inflict on a colony where servants are scarce and bad. But this is far from being the case. Mr Nicholson assures us (and we readily believe him) that it is very rare to find an individual whose moral conduct has been improved by a residence at a missionary station, and that for his part he prefers the downright heathen to the imperfect convert. Few of these coloured Christians have any distinct idea of the creed they profess; when able, which is seldom, to answer questions concerning its first principles, their replies are parrot-like and unintelligent. Against the general character of the missionaries nothing can be said; but they are throwing away time, and their employers are wasting money which might be employed to far greater advantage in England, or in other countries whose inhabitants, equally in want of religious instruction, are more capable of receiving and comprehending it than are the stolid aborigines of the Cape of Good Hope. Mr Nicholson does not dwell upon the subject of missionary labours in Africa, but compresses at the close of a chapter his opinions, which are sound and to the purpose. Mrs Ward says nothing on the matter, and we ourselves are not disposed to dilate upon it, having already often taken occasion to expose the folly of the system that sends preachers and biblemongers to the remotest corners of the earth when such scope for their labours exists at home. Let us return to George Nicholson, his trials and tribulations.

These were manifold; and he makes the most of them. No encouraging signs or omens cheered his progress through the land, bidding his heart beat high with hope. At two days' journey from Port Elizabeth he halted for the night at a farm belonging to an Englishman of independent property, who received him hospitably, but assured him that sheep-breeding was a hopeless speculation, owing to the bad pasturage, to the bushy tangled nature of the country, and to the hyenas, there called wolves, who are most destructive. As he proceeded, pasturage improved, but other plagues were apparent. In some places water was as scarce as in an Arabian desert, and as much prized—collected in pits and husbanded with the utmost care. "The maps of the colony indicate rivers of the most encouraging description in this part of the country. But the district itself presents only a series of dry water-courses, leaving evident traces of their capability of containing water for some hours after storms." These sandy and deceitful gullies intersect "a frightful country, which can only be described as a succession of low undulations, covered with large shingles, between which the most debauched-looking stunted tufts of the poisonous and prickly euphorbia, with here and there a magnificent scarlet-headed aloe, forced their way." We are at a loss to know what the ex-colonist here means by the epithet "debauched-looking," unless he intends some obscure allusion to the thirsty and disreputable aspect of the brambles, remote as they were from the vicinity of any water except one spring of "Harrowgate, which, to judge from the nasty effluvium it produced, must have been possessed of rare healing qualities." The severe droughts are the destruction of the settlers, entailing terrible losses and often total ruin, and their pernicious effects are aggravated by flights of locusts. These the farmers do what they can to keep off by smoky fires and other means, sometimes with success; but even when the insect cloud pass over a field without ravaging it, they leave a memento of their transit in the shape of innumerable eggs. In due time the young generation come forth, and being wingless cannot be driven away, but hop about and ravage every thing till their wings grow, and a gale of wind takes them off to fresh pasturage. Mrs Ward's description of a flight of locusts is remarkably striking, and given with a vigour of phrase not often found in the productions of a female pen.

"The first two years of our sojourn here, the locusts devastated the land. The prophet Joel describes this dreadful visitation as 'like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains,' 'like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble,' as 'a strong people set in battle array;' and any one who has ridden through a cloud of locusts must admit the description to be as true as it is sublime. On one occasion, at Fort Peddie, the cloud, flickering between us and the missionary station, half a mile distant, dazzled our eyes, and veiled the buildings from our sight; at last it rose, presenting its effects in some acres of barren stubble, which the sun had lit up in all the beauty of bright green a few hours before. Verily, the heavens seemed to tremble, and the sky was darkened by this 'great army,' which passed on, 'every one on his way,' neither 'breaking their ranks nor thrusting one another.' So they swept on, occupying a certain space between the heavens and the earth, and neither swerving from the path, extending the mighty phalanx, nor pausing in the course: the noise of their wings realising the idea of a 'flaming blast,' and their whole appearance typifying God's terrible threat of a 'besom of destruction.'

"'They shall walk every one in his path!' Nothing turns them from it. And if the traveller endeavours to force his way through them with unwonted rapidity, he is sure to suffer. I have ridden for miles at a sharp gallop through their legions, endeavouring to beat them of with my whip, but all to no purpose! Nothing turns them aside, and the poor horses bend down their heads as against an advancing storm, and make their way as best they can, snorting and writhing under the infliction of sharp blows on the face and eyes, which their riders endeavour to evade with as little success. You draw a long breath after escaping from a charge of locusts; and looking around you, you exclaim with the prophet, 'The land is as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them!'"[9]

Mr Nicholson's location included a tolerable house with mud floors and reed ceilings, and thirty-five thousand acres of mountain and plain, having the reputation of one of the best farms in the district. The cost of this was about £2000; and the property was calculated to maintain five or six thousand sheep, four hundred oxen, besides horses. There were four small springs, allowing the cultivation of about sixteen acres of good soil. Mr Nicholson, not wishing to overburden the land, bought only three thousand sheep, with cattle in proportion, and began the life (described by him as most discouraging and unprofitable) of a Cape of Good Hope sheep-farmer. Melancholy indeed is the account he gives of the profits and losses of that occupation. In the first place, high wages and good keep are scarcely sufficient inducement to the lazy Hottentots to take service; and when they are prevailed upon, they are scarce worth having. They are sent to the hills with the flocks, which they have to protect from beasts of prey, always on the look-out for a bit of straggling mutton. They themselves, however, are conspicuous for their rapacity, and by no means remarkable for honesty; and doubtless many a stray sheep is debited to the hyenas, of whose disappearance the Hottentots could give a very good account. The wild animals, however—panthers, jackals, hyenas, and, in some districts, lions—are amongst the settler's worst foes. These prowling carnivora preclude the possibility of leaving sheep out of doors after dark; and, even when penned, the fleecy family can hardly be considered safe. "In stormy weather," saith Nicholson, "my walled pens, although well bushed at top, and above six feet high, did not sufficiently protect me from great losses by the hyenas, which, on such occasions, would often jump over and kill sheep, and often carry one off in their mouths." This latter feat is rather astounding; but no matter, let us pass on to the next grievances of the unfortunate settler and sheep-farmer, grievances not peculiar to himself, but shared by all whose evil star guides them to the land of locusts and hyena. The diseases of sheep are numerous and fatal—scab, consumptive wasting, inflammation of the lungs, violent inflammatory epidemics, poisonous bushes and hailstones, drought and thunderbolts. "I recollect one of my neighbours losing upwards of three hundred valuable sheep in a few minutes from the effects of a hailstorm. Another farmer, living at no great distance from me, lost fifteen hundred sheep in one season from drought; and on my own farm, shortly before I became possessed of it, four hundred sheep were destroyed by lightning in a moment." Doubtless such mishaps as these do occur, but there is something particularly painful in Mr Nicholson's lugubrious style of piling them up, without intermixture of the smallest crumb of comfort for any unhappy individuals planning emigration to the Cape. Did he but vaunt the tender haunches and juicy saddles, the fine and profitable wool yielded by the remnant of these afflicted flocks! But touching the mutton he is mute; and as regards the produce of the fleeces, he pledges himself that, under the most favourable circumstances, they never yield more than four per cent on the value of the flock—a small enough remuneration, as it appears to us, unlearned, we confess, in ways of woollen. But we have not yet got to the worst of the story. Supposing a farmer fortunate, and that his flocks escape the multifarious evils above enumerated—that they are spared by the lightning's blast, the big hailstones, the inflammatory epidemic, and all the rest of it. Not upon that account may he rub his hands in jubilation, and reckon upon a good clip and high prices. He gets up one morning and finds his sheep converted into goats, or something little better. "Woolled sheep have a natural tendency to deterioration in this climate; and in a few generations, notwithstanding the greatest care, the wool begins to show a tendency to assimilate itself to the hairy nature of the coat, which, is the natural covering of the indigenous animal." So that, upon the whole, Mr Nicholson inclines to prefer goats to sheep, as stock, if properly attended to, and the utmost possible numbers kept. The profit is made out of the skin, fat, and flesh, and "those carcasses not required for food, might be boiled down for tallow." He perhaps overlooks, in this calculation, "the scarcity and bad quality of the fuel, composed of the dung dug out of the sheep pens, and stacked for the purpose." The present system, however, evidently does not answer, judging from his statement that there is not "one sheep-farmer in the Eastern Province (depending on the profits of his farm) who is either contented with the results of his farming, or is not grievously indebted to his storekeeper, except among the old-established and primitive Dutch families, who spend no money in manufactures, and have but little to spend, had they the habit." Is it unfair to argue, from this paragraph, the absence, on the part of the English colonists, of that frugal simplicity of living essential in a new country? A man settling in a country like the Cape, should be prepared to resign not only luxuries, but many things which in Europe are deemed positive necessaries of life, but which, in the forest and prairie, may well be dispensed with. We infer, from certain passages in Mr Nicholson's book, that he and his fellow-colonists were rather above their position, too addicted to the comforts of England to submit to the privations of Africa, and that they augmented their expenses by procuring alleviations which their primitive Dutch neighbours cheerfully dispensed with. The Dutchmen, Mr Nicholson tells us, spend no money in manufactures. Then the English settlers' wives were evidently quite out of their element in the bush, or as occupants of houses mud-floored and roofed with reeds. "I have never," says Mr Nicholson, "seen an English woman in the colony, at all raised above the very poorest, who did not complain bitterly of the inconvenience she endured when living on a farm; and I really know nothing more affecting than the sight of the often elegant-minded and well-educated sheep-farmer's wife struggling with the drudgery of her situation, and repining fruitlessly at the deceptive accounts which had induced her husband to seek his fortune in South Africa." Here we, perhaps, have a clue to one cause of the jaundiced view the ex-settler takes of things at the Cape. The impossibility of obtaining the requisite domestic servants drove Mrs Nicholson from the sheep-farm in Graaf Reinet to the more agreeable residence of Cape Town, at a distance of eight hundred miles; and thenceforward her husband divided his time, as best he could, between domestic and farming duties. This seems an uncomfortable state of things. The want of the master's eye must have been sadly felt at the farm during his visits to Cape Town, and he must have lost much time and some patience in weary eight-hundred-mile journeys, performed, for the most part, on horseback.

The Kaffir war is, of course, a prominent subject in the three books before us. We find least of it in that of Lieutenant Barnard, whose narrative is chiefly of things at sea, and most in Mrs Ward's volumes, which consist principally of details of that unsatisfactory contest. Mrs Ward and Mr Nicholson concur in attributing to Whig mal-administration, and to the unwise treaties of Sir Andries Stockenstrom, the numerous disasters that of late years have afflicted the Cape, and the bloody and inglorious struggle that has cost this country upwards of three millions sterling. Here, again, is to be traced the hand and mischief-making tongue of the pseudo-philanthropists. By those tender-hearted gentry was the original impulse given to the series of changes which have done so much towards the ruin of a prosperous colony. First came a scream about the ill-treated Hottentots. These were certainly often ill-used by their Dutch masters, but that was surely no reason for emancipating them, by one summary ordinance, from every species of restraint. This, however, was the course adopted; and forthwith the Hottentot, by nature one of the most indolent of animals, spurned work, and took to idleness and dram-drinking. Since that fatal day, the race has degenerated and dwindled, and no doubt it will ultimately become extinct. Having thus, greatly to the detriment and inconvenience of the colonists, procured the Hottentots liberty, or rather license, the sympathisers extended their charitable exertions to Kaffirland. What pretext existed for this new crusade does not exactly appear, but its result was even more mischievous than their interference with the Hottentots. The Kaffirs were told of grievances they previously never had dreamed of, they were rendered unsettled and dissatisfied, (greedy and rapacious they already were,) and at last they poured into the colony, sweeping off the flocks and herds, murdering the peaceable settler, and setting the flaming brand to his roof-tree. This incursion, the ruin of thousands, at an end, the colonists set to work to repair damages, hoping for peace and a return of prosperity, when a new calamity came upon them. Mrs Ward shall describe it.

"Suddenly there was a voice, which went through all the countries of the known earth, crying aloud, 'Let the slave be free!' Societies sent forth their ragged regiments, with banners on which the negro was depicted as an interesting child of nature, chained and emaciated, whilst a ruffian beside him held the lash over his head. 'The people' really imagined that the sugar plantations were worked by lanky negroes, handcuffed one to another. Elderly ladies, who abused their neighbours over their bohea, rejoiced in the prospect of 'emancipation and cheap sugar,' and the people, the dear 'people,' expected to get it for nothing. The Dutch were quite ready to listen to the voice that cried 'shame' at the idea of seizing our fellow-creatures, packing them like herrings in slave-ships, and bartering them in the market. But how to set about the remedy should have been considered. The chain was broken, and the people of England hurraed to their hearts' content. Meanwhile, what became of the slave? If he was young and vicious, away he went—he was his own master. He was free—he had the world before him where to choose. Whether true or false, he was persuaded he had been ill used. So, whilst his portrait, with a broken chain, sleek limbs, eyes uplifted to heaven, and hands clasped in speechless gratitude, was carried about the streets of our manufacturing towns in England, (where there was more starvation in one street than among the whole of the South African slave population,) the original of the picture was squatted beside the Kaffir's fire, thinking his meal of parched corn but poor stuff after the palatable dishes he had been permitted to cook for himself in the boer's or tradesman's kitchen."[10]

And the frugal, hard-working Dutchmen, an excellent ingredient in the population of a young country, finding themselves deprived of their slaves, insufficiently compensated, and in fifty ways prejudiced and inconvenienced by the clumsy and injudicious manner in which the emancipation had been carried out, brooded over the injustice done them, and began to migrate across various branches of Orange river towards the north-east corner of the colony, and finally beyond its boundary, preferring constant warfare with the Kaffirs, entailed upon them by the change, to submission to the new and vexatious ordinances, and to the enactments of the Stockenstrom treaties. These were in the highest degree absurd, although their framer was rewarded by a pension and title, as if he had done the state some service, instead of having actually been the main cause of the last Kaffir war. A ridiculous report got abroad, credited largely by stay-at-home philanthropists, and heartily laughed at by all who had any real knowledge of the subject, that the Kaffirs were a mild, peaceable, and ill-used people—in Exeter-Hall phrase, "a pastoral and patriarchal race." "It was imagined," says Mr Nicholson, "that they possessed a strong sense of honour and probity, and only desired to be guaranteed from the tyranny of the colonists, (poor lambs!); and a determination was accordingly come to, to make treaties with the chiefs, the performance of which could only be secured by their honourable observance of what was detrimental to the interests of themselves and their people, as they understood it." Now the truth of the matter is, that a more vicious and treacherous race than the Kaffirs would be sought in vain upon the face of the inhabited earth. They unite every evil quality. "The stalwart Kaffir," says Mrs Ward, "with his powerful form and air of calm dignity, beneath which are concealed the deepest cunning and the meanest principles. Some call the Kaffir brave. He is a thief, a liar, and a beggar, ready only to fight in ambush; and although, to use the common expression, he 'dies game,' his calmness is the result of sullenness." Cunning is the most prominent characteristic of this pleasing savage. "It makes them," says Lieutenant Barnard, "fully aware of the humanity of the English character, which prevents us from killing an unarmed man; so, when they find themselves taken unawares, they throw their arms into the bush, pretend to be friendly Kaffirs, and, in all probability, fire on our troops when they get to a convenient distance." It also taught them, during the former war, that they had no chance against Europeans unless they could procure firearms; to have time to get these, they joyfully concluded a treaty, and would have done so on far less favourable terms, never intending to abide by them. But those made were not sufficiently stringent to keep even civilised borderers in check. Some were laughed at, others evaded, whilst a third class defeated their own object. Here is the twenty-fourth article, as a sample of the last-named sort:—"If any person being in pursuit of criminals or depredators, or property stolen by them, shall not overtake or recover the same before he shall reach the said line, (colonial boundary;) and provided he can make oath that he traced the said criminals, &c., across a particular spot on said line; that the property, when stolen, was properly guarded by an armed herdsman; that the pursuit was commenced immediately after such property was stolen; that, if the robbery was committed in the night, the property had been (when stolen) properly secured in kraals, (folds,) stables, or the like; and that the pursuit, in such case, was commenced (at latest) early next morning, such person shall be at liberty to proceed direct to the pakati, (Kaffir police!") and (we abridge the verbiage) to make his affidavit and continue his pursuit, "provided he do not go armed, or accompanied by armed British subjects." Was there ever any thing more absurd than the formalities here prescribed for the recovery of property from a set of cattle-lifters, in comparison with whom a Scottish borderer of the olden time was a man of truth and conscience, and a respecter of neighbours' rights? It explains, if it does not quite justify, the fierce personal attack made by Nicholson the sheep-farmer upon the negotiator of such foolish treaties, whom he designates pretty plainly, without positively naming him. Mrs Ward, too lady-like and well-bred to descend to personalities—save in the case of Kaffirs, whom at times she does most lustily vituperate—contents herself with blaming acts without attacking individuals. The wily Kaffirs, with whom theft is a virtue, were not slow to discover the facilities afforded them, and stole cattle to a greater extent than ever. Persuaded, moreover, that such regulations could be prompted only by the weakness of the framers, they looked forward with glee to overrunning the entire colony at their leisure. They only waited till they should have sufficient muskets and cartridges. These they easily obtained; there was no lack of unpatriotic white traders ready and willing to supply them. This done, the warwhoop was raised, and hostilities recommenced,—the Kaffirs confident of victory. There had been so much parleying and lawyers'-work with them, threats had so often been uttered and so seldom carried out, that the savages had formed an immense idea of their own consequence and power. Whilst the hollow peace lasted, their constant and imperious cry was "Bassila!" Give!—when the mask of friendship was thrown aside, they burst into the colony, desolating in their progress as a swarm of locusts; and if assailed by the scanty forces that could at first be brought against them, they plunged into the tangled bush, and, with levelled gun and assegai, shouted "Izapa!" Come on! From the evidence of Mrs Ward's own pages, we think she hardly does them justice in classing them with poltroons. They appear to have made good fight on many occasions. And if the white feather be so conspicuous an ornament in their savage head-dress, on what ground can she claim such great credit for the troops that overcame them, and talk of the war as one "not so noble in its details as those of the days of Napoleon, but far more glorious in its results." Here she evidently writes from the heat and impulse of the moment, as she does in some other parts of her book. To this we do not object, but rather prefer it to the cautious and circumspect manner in which most writers, especially male ones, would have extolled the deeds of the South African army, whose sole opportunities of distinction were in petty skirmishes with undisciplined and naked barbarians. Not that the Kaffirs could be considered as foes of the most contemptible class. With a monkey-like faculty of imitation, they caught up smatterings of European tactics. "Day by day," we quote Mr Barnard, "they get more expert in the use of fire-arms, and are observant of our least movements, that I have heard officers describe their throwing out skirmishers as quite equal to our own manoeuvres." They also attempt stratagems, often with success. It is a common trick with them to ensnare small parties of the enemy by leaving a few cattle grazing at the edge of a thicket, in which they conceal themselves, and when their opponents approach, issue forth and assail them. In this manner were entrapped Captain Gibson and Dr Howell, of the Rifles, and the Honourable Mr Chetwynd, who, as new-comers to the colony, were not up to the hackneyed decoy. The Kaffirs, on the other hand, are too cunning to be often taken unawares, although we read of a few successful surprises in Mrs Ward's chronicle of the campaign. Colonel Somerset, the gallant commander of the Cape mounted Rifles, is the hero of one of these, upon which Mrs Ward dwells with peculiar complacency. A small division of troops had halted to bivouac, when an officer's horse ran away, and carried him over a hill, past a "clump of Kaffirs" six hundred strong. Reining in with great difficulty, he dashed back and made his report. What ensued is described in appropriate style by our martial and dashing authoress.

"Colonel Somerset lifted his cap from his head, gave three hearty cheers and shouted, 'Major Gibsone, (7th Dragoon Guards,) return carbines, draw swords, charge!' 'Hurrah!' was echoed back; and on they dashed, dragoons, Cape corps, burghers, Hottentots, and Fingos. They found the enemy up and in position. Such a mÊlÉe! The cavalry dashed through the phalanx of Kaffirs, and for want of more cavalry to support them, dashed back again! A Hottentot soldier, one of the sturdy Cape corps, having two horses given him to take care of, charged unarmed, save his sword, and with a horse in each hand. There was great slaughter amongst the enemy.... Such Kaffirs as could not escape fell down exhausted and cried for mercy: there was a great deal of cunning in this,—they would have stabbed any one who approached near enough to them to offer a kind word. They had all had enough, however, of meeting a combined force of dragoons and Cape corps, and no doubt the latter tried to surpass themselves. Those gallant little Totties are an untiring and determined band. How little do we know in England of the courage and smartness of the Hottentot!"

A very wholesome lesson for the Kaffirs, two hundred of whom were killed, and a good many more wounded, but rather an inglorious victory for regular cavalry—so, at least, it strikes us, when we contemplate, in one of Mrs Ward's illustrations, a parcel of naked monsters, more like Mexican apes than men, howling and capering, and hurling javelins at an advancing party of infantry. Any "phalanx" formed by these uncouth barbarians, would be, we should think, of a very loose description, and not likely to oppose much resistance to the charge of her Majesty's 7th Dragoon Guards, backed by the mounted Rifles, who in spite of black skin, diminutive stature, and cucumber shanks, are admitted on all hands to be very efficient light cavalry—the best, probably, for warfare against savages. It were well, perhaps, to increase their numbers; or at any rate, if cavalry must be sent out from England, it were surely advisable to select it of the lightest description. Dragoon guards are excellent in their place, first-rate fellows to oppose to helmeted Frenchmen or Germans; but the Cape is by no means their place, and Kaffirs are not cuirassiers. It is like hunting weasels with wolf-hounds; the very size and power of the dogs impede them in the pursuit of their noxious and contemptible prey. There is one point of difference, however, and by no means in favour of the dragoons; weasels do not carry loaded muskets, which Kaffirs habitually do, firing them off whenever occasion offers, from behind bushes, out of wolf-holes, or from any other sequestered and sheltered position, where it is impossible for the heavy six-foot-long dragoon guardsmen to get at them. Red jackets, glittering accoutrements, and tall figures make up a capital mark for the bullet of a lurking foe; and the unfortunate warriors go perspiring through the bush, with the thermometer at 120° in the shade, cursing the Kaffirs, but rarely catching them, their clattering scabbards betraying their approach, and their lofty helmets visible, leagues off, to the keen-eyed savage. Local corps—the native article—are unquestionably the proper thing at the Cape; the patient Hottentot and plucky Fingo bear heat, hunger, and fatigue far better than the beef-fed Englishman. "The Hottentot will smile quietly when there is neither food nor water, and draw his girdle of famine[11] tighter round his waist, and travel on under the sun uncomplainingly." The Fingos, when hard run for rations, sometimes eat the bullock-hide shields that form part of their defensive equipment. These Fingos, by the way, are rather remarkable fellows. The word Fingo means slave, and for a long period the tribe that bore the name were in worse than Egyptian bondage. They were the serfs of the pitiless Kaffirs, until Sir Benjamin de Urban rescued them. "On the 7th May," says Sir James Alexander, in his sketches of Western Africa, "I witnessed a most interesting sight, and one which causes this day to be of immense importance in the annals of South Africa. It was no less than the flight of the Fingo nation, seventeen thousand in number, from Amakose bondage, guarded by British troops, and on their way across the Kei, to find a new country under British protection." Although an indolent race, fond of basking in the sun, and who will not even hunt until driven to it by hunger, they fought bravely during the last war, proving themselves, in many engagements, better men than their former taskmasters, who to this day never speak of them but as their "dogs." Fingo costume, as described by Mrs Ward, is rather original than civilised. They ornament their heads with jackals' tails, ostrich plumes, beads, wolves' teeth, &c. Across their shoulders is the skin of a beast, around their waist a kilt of monkey tails, and they bear enormous shields, on which they sometimes beat time as on a drum. "They will lie down on the watch for hours, and imitate the cries of animals to attract the attention of the Kaffirs, who find themselves encountered by creatures of their own mould, instead of the wolf or the jackal, as they expected. Sometimes, on the other hand, the Kaffirs will encircle the Fingos, and dance round them, yelling frightfully—now roaring like a lion, now hissing like a serpent; but it is seldom the Kaffirs conquer the Fingos, unless the latter are inferior in numbers." Notwithstanding their monkified manoeuvres, the Fingos have been found very useful. Nay, the very Bushmen, (the real aborigines of South Africa,) of which diminutive and miserable race specimens were recently exhibited in England, were availed of as allies during the war—a detachment of them, armed with poisoned arrows, accompanying the British forces. This may appear rather derogatory to British humanity, but all is fair when Kaffirs are the foe. The cruelties of these savages exceed belief. Mrs Ward regales us with a few of their barbarous exploits, and details the tortures inflicted on the unhappy wretches who fell into their hands. A soldier of the 91st regiment, caught straggling, was flayed alive, the little children being permitted, by way of a treat, to assist in tormenting him. Another was burned to death. We find no account of quarter ever being given. And Kaffir impudence equals Kaffir cruelty. When they found themselves getting the worst of the fight, after sustaining a reverse of unusual severity, they would coolly send ambassadors to the British to know "why war was made upon them," and to request permission to "plant their corn" in peace.

"After the affair at Fort Peddie, Stock, a T'Slambie chief, sent messengers to complain of our attacks upon him, when he, too, was 'sitting still,' and only wished to be allowed to 'watch his father Eno's grave!' Very pathetic indeed! This would sound most pastoral and poetical in Exeter Hall. Stock was, no doubt, 'sitting still' beside 'his father's grave,' but his people were at work, plundering, burning, murdering, torturing, and mutilating the troops and colonists, whilst he 'sat still' and approved. He should have protected that sacred spot, and kept the neighbourhood of Fort Peddie clear of marauders."[12]

Mrs Ward writes like a man. We mean this in no uncomplimentary sense; on the contrary. Her clear, natural, and lively style has a masculine vigour and concision; her opinions are bold and decided. To those she emits upon the subject of the colony and its prospects, we are inclined to attach considerable weight. Women are keen observers, and Mrs Ward is evidently no ordinary woman, but a person of great energy and penetration. We more willingly rely on the observations made during her marches and countermarches, in her equestrian rambles and at outquarters, than on the croaking experiences of our friend the sheep-farmer. A soldier's daughter and wife—a life of change, hardship, and danger, has quickened her perceptions and ripened her judgment.

"When I read the miserable account from Ireland of its past year's woe, and the wretched prospect for the next, I long to hear of ships making their way to Algoa Bay, with emigrants from that country. Some have arrived within the last few weeks, and employment and provision have been met with at once. Under another system, affording protection to the settler, this country will afford a refuge to the starving population of Ireland. Well might Sir Henry Pottinger be struck with the capabilities and resources of this fine colony, as he travelled through it. Here is a vast and fertile space, comparatively free, at this moment, from the murderous heathen.... An industrious population, located in sections, would be the best protection for the country; and a well-organised militia, or police force, might be formed from those who are likely to die of cold and famine at home. Until such locations can be established, more troops will be required; the country we have added to our possessions must be held by might, and to do this, a living wall, bristling with arms, is necessary.

"The village of Bathurst, in the district of Lower Albany, may be said to defend itself to its best ability. This pretty settlement has risen and flourished under the patient labour of emigrants, sent thither in 1820, chiefly through the instrumentality of the Duke of Newcastle. The labourer, the mechanic, the unthriving tradesman, the servant without work, may not only find employment, but are absolutely wanted here. The former may plant his three, and sometimes four crops of potatoes in the year, to say nothing of other produce, and manifold resources of gain and comfort. It is singular that, whilst our fellow creatures in Great Britain, in 1847, were suffering from the failure of their crops, the gardens of corn, pumpkin, &c., in Kaffirland, were more than usually productive.

"The miserable mechanics from our crowded manufacturing districts may here earn six shillings a-day with ease; the ruined tradesman of England, with a jail staring him in the face, will meet a welcome here, where opposition in trade is required, to promote industry, honesty, and civility; and the youths of Ireland, instead of arming themselves for rebellious purposes, may, in this colony, serve their Queen honourably, by protecting their fellow creatures from the aggressions of the savage."[13]

Favourable and encouraging accounts, contrasting strongly with Mr Nicholson's melancholy reports! That gentleman's book, if read and credited, is of itself enough to stop emigration to the country whither Mrs Ward thus strongly advocates it. And we must bear in mind, moreover, that the colonial districts of the Cape include the least fertile and valuable portion of South Africa. The finest pastures and most healthy tracts are held by Hottentots, Kaffirs, and Fingos. Savages, experience teaches us, recede and dwindle on the advance of the white man. Increase the population of the Cape Colony, and in due time the colonists will push their way. But Mr Nicholson strongly objects to such increase, and holds it unwise and impracticable. We cannot repeat, even in a compressed form, all the gloomy statements of his eighth chapter, but will just glance at one or two of its points. In the first place, in the country which, as Mrs Ward maintains, would receive "the starving population of Ireland," and be the better for their arrival, so long as they were willing to work, Mr Nicholson can only make room for one thousand of the humbler classes of emigrants. This, he opines, "would be the greatest number who could obtain employment suited to the capacities and habits of decent labouring people." They are to be principally female house-servants, cooks, housemaids, and nurses; and with respect to the few out-door labourers he is disposed to admit, those, he tells us, "would succeed best who, without having previously followed any particular occupation so closely as to be almost unfitted for any other, can, as the term is, 'turn their hands to any thing.'" Married men, in his opinion, should not go out at all. These are certainly singular doctrines, rather contrary to received notions concerning emigration, as well as to Mrs Ward's opinions. As to persons of a superior class going out to take farms, expecting to live upon their produce, Mr Nicholson treats the idea as utterly visionary and chimerical. Such persons must possess an independent income, in addition to what it may be necessary to invest in a farm. The question then is, how do the Dutch manage? since the "late resident" admits the superior success and contentedness found amongst the BoËrs, and which were far more evident before the wealthiest and most intelligent of them had left the colony, to seek at Port Natal refuge from foolish legislation, and from the slave-emancipating absurdities of the philanthropists. May not an answer be found in the following extract?—"It must be admitted that a British population is of more intrinsic value than a colonial Dutch one; but then the latter has, by long experience, been taught to moderate hopes and necessities within a compass little in accordance with the go-a-head notions of the present race of Englishmen of all classes of society." Of course if "fast men" go out to settle at the Cape, with Captain Harris's book of South African sports and a case of rifles and fowling-pieces for chief baggage, and with expectations of finding in the bush grand-pianos for their wives, and rocking-horses for their first-born, they are likely to be exceedingly discontented on discovering hard work and many privations to be the necessary conditions of life in a new country. But Mr Nicholson is evidently not one of those easily-pleased persons, who put up with present disagreeables in hopes of a more prosperous future. To be sure, he denies the possibility of any amount of energy, knowledge, and industry procuring the emigrant a settled and comfortable position. "When all this energy must be expended in an often vain effort to prevent loss, or to overcome difficulties, the control of which will only have a conservative, and not a progressive effect on the settler's circumstances, its constant exercise soon sickens, and the consequences will be despair and misery." We should put more faith in these deplorable accounts, were they supported by the evidence of other writers on the subject; but we know of none who partake Mr Nicholson's dismal views, at least to any thing like the same extent. And his whole book breathes a spirit of discontent and depreciation that makes us regard it with distrust, as the splenetic effusion of a man soured by ill success. With him, from Dan to Beersheba, all is barren; or, if exceptional fertility here and there prevails, it is neutralised by an accumulation of evils.

"The farmer is, in this country, always checkmated, as it were, by the natural order of things: luxuriant-looking pasturage is of poisonous quality, and the more wholesome kinds scanty in quantity, and liable to be fatally diminished by dry seasons. Crops of corn and all kinds of vegetables grow most abundantly, and are cultivated at but little expense, in most parts of Albany; frequent and heavy losses in wheat crops, however, may be expected from the 'rust,' and less frequent and more partial destruction from the attacks of locusts. When a large general yield of grain occurs, it must be sold at a very low figure, as there is great difficulty in preserving it for better prices, for want of granaries and barns, which would be too expensive to erect, and would, after all, but ineffectually guarantee it from the attacks of the numerous animals and insects which swarm in this climate. If sold for a good price in such a season, to persons inhabiting other districts where the crops may have failed, the expenses of transport would form a serious item of deduction from the general profit."[14]

May we be a breakfast for hippopotami, if there is a possibility of pleasing George Nicholson, junior, Esq.! Here is a catalogue of calamities! How he baffles the unfortunate settler at every turn with some fresh and inevitable disaster! When grass abounds, it is poisonous, and, when wholesome, there is none of it! The rust and the locust conspire to destroy the wheat: when it escapes both, it must be sold for next to nothing, because it is not worth while building barns to store it. And if a Cape farmer were extravagant enough to build a granary, insects and animals would empty it for him! Insects, animals, and reptiles certainly are the curse of the country—certain descriptions of them, at least. Snakes are very abundant, and nearly all deadly in their bite. In the fertile district of Zwellendam they abound, and frequently occasion severe loss by biting the sheep. Amongst the beasts of prey, lions are getting thinned by the guns of BoËrs, settlers, and English officers; the jackals and hyenas are cowardly creatures, and fly from man, but play the mischief with the flocks. The rhinoceros is an ugly customer when provoked, but far less so than he would be were his sight better, and his difficulty in turning his stiff carcass less. The lumbering hippopotamus abounds in most of the rivers, and is shot from the banks by huntsmen hidden amongst the bushes; he is sometimes also taken in pitfalls, with a sharp stake at the bottom, which impales any unfortunate animal chancing to fall in. His teeth are more valuable than elephant ivory, and his flesh—especially the fat, which, when salted, eats like bacon—is greatly esteemed by both colonists and natives. The plains are in some places infested by colonies of small animals, rather larger than the squirrel, and obnoxious to the horseman, "who form a kind of warren in the softer and more sandy portions of the plain, which break in with the horse, and bury him up to his shoulders in the dust and rubbish, amongst which the rider is pretty sure of finding himself on his back." But if dangerous beasts and troublesome vermin are too plentiful in the colony, this annoyance is compensated by an extraordinary abundance of useful and profitable animals. Numerous varieties of the stag and antelope overrun the plains. Mr Nicholson, whom we suspect of a more decided predilection for the sportsman's double-barrel than for the crook and tar-barrel of the sheep-farmer, speaks in the highest terms of field-sports at the Cape, although, faithful to his system of flying off from a subject almost as soon as he touches upon it, he gives few details, hinting diffidence in approaching that subject after Harris's famous book. The little he does say impresses us with the idea of a glorious supply of venison and other choice meats. We read of twenty thousand antelopes in sight at one time; of a column of spring-bucks (a variety of the same family) fifteen miles in length, and so closely packed, that nine fell at one discharge from a large gun. The extensive forest of the Zitikama, which supplies the colony with timber, abounds in buffalo, boar, and antelope, in pheasants, partridges, and guinea-fowl. The keen sportsman, not wedded to the pleasures of a city, will find abundant pastime and recreation in so gamy a land as this; and, when wearied by the monotonous occupations of his farm, may, almost without losing sight of browsing herds and drowsy Hottentots, pleasantly beguile an hour by stalking a "blesbok" or circling a bustard—the latter process consisting in riding round the birds in large but decreasing circles, which evolution, if skilfully performed, causes them to lie close till the horse walks them up. Such is the manoeuvre advocated and practised by Mr Nicholson, who, having at last left off grumbling, and begun to be amusing, prematurely closes his very brief volume, as if afraid of writing himself into good humour on his favourite subject of sporting, and of retracting some portion of his previous depreciation of a colony which, with due deference for his opinion and verdict, we persist in considering a land of great promise to frugal, hardy, and industrious emigrants.